As is known in the art, the control cables made up of a sheathed steel cable used in the automobile industry for the transmission of thrust-traction forces, and usually known as push-pull operating cables, are frequently mounted on the vehicle in such a way that the ends of the steel cable sheath are attached to fixed points along the route of the control cable, while the ends of the steel cable have a corresponding terminal designed for detachable coupling thereof to a control device and its associated mechanism, respectively, such as the above-mentioned gear-shift lever and the corresponding gear-shift mechanism. Known, too, is the fact that such control cables generally include an adjusting device whose purpose, during fitting of the cable onto the vehicle, consists in adjusting the length of the sheathed portion of steel cable in order to achieve suitable functioning of the control cable by taking up the length tolerances of each particular vehicle. It is the usual practice to fit said adjusting device on one of the terminals of the control cable.
Essentially, the known embodiments of adjusting devices include a regulating rod linked by one of its ends to the corresponding end of the steel cable, while the other end is inserted into a housing of the terminal through which it can slide, and means which secure the position of the rod with respect to the terminal. During fitting of the cable onto the vehicle, the user generally adjusts the portion of rod housed inside the terminal, thereby adjusting the sheathed portion of steel cable, and then proceeds to secure the position of the regulating rod by actuating the fixing means.
The patent document PCT/ES97/00057 (WO 97/35118) discloses a self-adjusting device for control cable terminals comprising a main body, a regulating rod partially housed in the main body, a thrust spring working permanently under compression in such a way that the regulating rod is permanently subjected to a force acting from the outside inwards, and means for securing the position of the regulating rod.
The known embodiments of adjusting devices such as those described above share, wholly or partially, the following disadvantages. Adjustment of the sheathed portion of steel cable is implemented manually, thereby leading to an inconsistency of results which can affect the correct functioning of the control cable, while the fixing of the position reached by the regulating rod once the length of said sheathed portion has been adjusted calls for the use of a tool and therefore increases the costs of fitting the control cable onto the vehicle.